Echoes
by TenderWild
Summary: You don't want to be telling this story.
1. Part I

**AN- I own nothing. Set early season six. No connection to Living/Dead Doll.**

**

* * *

Part One **

* * *

You don't want to be telling this story. 

Memories can be like dreams, if you like. Write a dream down, you remember it; but if you let it fade, eventually it's gone.  
Memories are the same.

Tell yourself it never happened, then maybe one day you might believe yourself.

You don't get to forget today.

Was the interrogation room always this grey?  
Maybe it's the rain.

You're glad it's Brass, then again maybe you wish it wasn't. This would be easier for both of you if you were strangers.

You don't want to see his face when you tell him, don't want him to know. It can be your own private horror, and at least he won't look at you different.  
He'll wish he could just read it on paper later, so then when it gets too much he can just put it down for a moment and remember to breathe.  
Breathe.

Too bad for you both.

He's doing the paperwork, filling out the beginning of the witness statement, moving his pen slowly.  
He's stalling.  
You know it, he knows it, and he knows you know and—

He puts the pen down.  
Your throat shuts off.

He clasps those of his hands together, looks at you with those terrible kind eyes.

God, this is going to be hard.

You want to look up, down, anywhere but him, but instead you meet his eyes.

"Start from the beginning, Sara. Take your time."

You wish he hadn't said your name.  
Now you can't pretend it was someone else.

* * *

It was raining. 

Then again, maybe it wasn't. Your mind might have added that in, to explain to itself why it never heard those footsteps or that heavy breath.

You think it was raining.

You're walking out of the labs towards your car. You look up, to a sky etched with lead and silver.  
You stop, take in the smell of dampness.  
What were you thinking?

Even in your head, you stand for too long.

_Where did you go after that?_

You don't know. To your car, maybe.

_Do you remember?_

Do you?

You remember the rain.  
_No. _

No smell, no taste, no prickling on your spine.

Only that frozen moment.

Then…

You don't remember.

How can this happen?  
How can you lose such chunks of time?

You think sometimes maybe if you remembered how, when, how this started, you could let this fade away. If only you knew the how.

_Did you go home?_

Did you?

Yes, you must have. They found open OJ on the counter. The fridge door was still open.

_Do you remember going home?_

No. You remember the sky, you remember the cold.

But then, there is nothing.

_Do you remember grabbing at the door?_

He shows you the pictures, the photos.  
Scours in wood.

You can imagine yourself. Him, pretending to be a delivery guy. Or maybe he was waiting inside, watching as you opened the fridge.  
Drugging you, you fighting.  
Maybe.

But when you look down, there is nothing. They are only pictures.

Not memories.

Besides.  
It doesn't matter anyway.

Because whatever happened, you never saw him coming.

* * *

What did he say?

_She came to me._

Maybe you did.

* * *

What do you remember?

_Cold._

_You're cold; shaking._

_You can't remember where you are, can't remember waking up. You can't see through the dark, and you can hear the drip of water as you shake and sweat on your side in the darkness._

_And the smell. _

_Oh God, the Smell._

_That you remember. Like formaldehyde, like sulphur. Some you don't forget._

_You're sick and shaking, your muscles ache and you put a hand to the ground and find sticky, dirty softness._

_A bed? No, mattress. _

_You want to sit but know if you move you'll be sick-_

_Oh, the smell-_

_You're sick anyway, and the smell is worse._

_There's chloroform on your cheeks, its tacky in your hair. You smell it even through that stink as you try to sit, clinging to the walls, wishing the floor would stop twitching like a dying animal._

_You close you're eyes and swallow bile, trying to think._

_The floor convulses and shudders, and you nearly lose it again._

_Think, think!_

_You know you're panicking, and you fight it down. _

_There's an angry hissing in your ears, and somehow you end up in a corner of the room (is it?) hands clawed around your head as you fight inside for control._

_Whatever else it is wins, and you faint into a shivering darkness._

_That you remember. _

_You've missed the prologue and skipped ahead to the first chapter. How are you supposed to understand?_

* * *

You don't like this, it leaves you cold. Brass's expression is unreadable but you can hear those echoes in the other room. 

Grissom left the door open outside, so you know he's there.

You still can't decide if this is better.

_Just stop, if this is too hard. We will find something, look harder_.  
He said that to you, muttered it in your ear as Brass beckoned you forward.

You both know you can't do that, but you appreciated the thought.

There is nothing. Only you.

_

* * *

What do you remember? _

The first time?

Why not second, third? The fifth stands out particularly well in your head, but then after that you cannot pick out the details.

You don't want to.

_What do you remember?_

The first, then.

Only flashes. Sounds, smells.  
And you remember smelling blood in the air, knowing it was yours but not remembering where you were cut. There are images of cast-off, but they're from your fathers murder, not yours.  
You were fighting for your life, and there was only that black terror and those thoughts you never wanted to think, boiling and screaming in a rage that left you bloodless, dry, drained.

If only he hadn't been so clean. If only you had left a deeper mark. If only the evidence was enough that you didn't have to do this.

You remember thinking you were going to die.

And glasses, flickering like candles as the light reflected.

But you've erased the details, and nothing in this world or hereafter will make you drag those minutes back. Though you think it was then he forced the ring onto your fingers, because you had it after.

What do you remember? 

_Nothing.  
_Nothing at all.

_

* * *

First days. _

_They are hard._

_No time, and all the time in the world. You learn that he is not going to kill you yet, and you can hope. You rotate around the room, and you fight the door and claw for the metre long crack above your head that tells you this is a basement._

_And that ring on your finger. It mocks you, and you can't understand how he got it on when you can get it off._

_No matter._

_You pressed your thumb over and over again on the walls; you ripped out hairs and hid them in a crack in the wood of the stairs._

_There is no shortage of blood for you to paint the walls with._

_But other ways; they were your backup. You broke your nails in the door, you index finger trying to force the hinges._

_And him. Him. _

_Each time he comes, you embroidered a patchwork in you head. You memorised, catalogued him in your head, because you thought later you might need it. _

_Hoped you could use it. _

_How could you have had so much hope?_

_And such a monstrous patchwork_.

* * *

You are dancing around what Brass wants to hear. 

He knows, has been told, to be careful what he asks. You are delicate, breakable, fragile. You've heard these words when they didn't think you could listen.

Brass is being to soft on you, and you want to tell him that, if only he might listen.

A sound, you think, and you turn your head slightly.

There's a ghost watching you from the mirror, but you've grown used to her and can tolerate. It's what's behind you that worries you.  
What does he think of you?

_

* * *

You've forgotten a darkness like this, like floating in a void. A smothering Abyss of nothing, the claustrophobia of empty spaces. _

_You can't stand the silence._

_You could scream, if you wanted. You think you might have at the beginning, but it's too hard to remember._

_When you think back all you see is darkness, with the memories of before just echoes. Some days you woke up and panicked because you couldn't remember the name of your neighbour, can't think of how old Lindsey is. Can't remember day or date._

_You want to scream._

_Shriek the walls down, rocks etched in soundwaves and echoes._

_But you've tried, and the fact that there's only the quiet, before, after, always makes you curl under the stairs and go over it all in your mind._

_For there must be a way. Logic has not let you down yet._

_

* * *

Tell me about what he did. _

Brass is like a terrier with this question.

No.

You can tell about what you thought, saw, heard. You can describe the room, tell how there were twenty cracks on the ceiling, how nine branched and three were straight as rulers. You can tell about the smell of the stone, the taste of copper from the line of water that snakes its way down the left wall.

You looked at these. You described the walls, the shape of the crack that is like a half open gape mouth, the colour of the light as it faded.

You could list a thousand other things that seemed more important before you would ever come to what he did.

* * *

There is a sound, through the glass. 

Brass stops, and scowls at his reflection.  
You turn, and you don't know if you should laugh, or turn away in shame.

You wonder what the sound was; imagine him sitting and quietly listening, then not so quietly snapping something in half.  
Suddenly, you don't want him to hear the next part. You know he will be hurt, but despite that you ask Brass to turn off the mike.

It's only later, after you've finished, that you remember you should've turned your back so he couldn't see your lips.

* * *

You were his mannequin, his living doll. A body he hung a face on. 

You felt it in the way he looked at you, that vacant gaze.  
You knew when he stated calling you by her name.

You wondered, once, in a haze, what you'd done for your body to be used like this.  
You wondered who he hated so much

* * *

It was Grissom, who told you later, about her. 

You saw her, when he faced court the first time. You looked away from him, and saw her looking. Her face was veiled, dark, and you knew it was from shame of him than for the fact you looked like her.

You focus through the veil, and her head lowers away from you.  
You want something from her, but you don't know what. You never got the chance either, because she vanished the next day out of Las Vegas, and not even Brass can hunt her down.

You still don't know if she will get any of your blame.

_

* * *

What will you do, with all these ghosts? _

_These other women, lingering in the shadows and stains and random scratches on the walls. You wonder how many, who they were._

_Someone scratched lines on the wall, and you think she might have realised how much a prisoner she was. You wonder at how there are only four lines, whether it was better if she simply gave up or it was something else that stopped her._

_Maybe you should leave something on the walls, like they did. Handy hints on how to survive starvation, though you realise you wouldn't have a clue. You don't know how you're surviving._

_You wonder if you'll be someone else's ghost. _

_There is a cross, right up the back of the hole beneath the stairs, so you know someone else hid here too._

_You don't believe in God, you don't believe in believing. But someone prayed to be released, and if you sit close it might happen to you too. _

_Salvation by proxy._

_You pray, and the words are half formed, half forgotten._

Thou art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name… 

_What did you do when they read this out in school? You thought about gravity, relativity, about the boy who sat next to you._

_You can't remember his name, and it seems vitally important that you do. _

For Thine is thy kingdom.

_You think instead of the poem, and wonder at this whimper. _

_You think you'd have rather the bang._

_In the end, you do leave something on the wall. You scratch his name, and though it takes you a day you still don't know why. __You can't decide whether it is to remind yourself, or so that he might be able to find you after you've gone.  
__You scratch it, and all the while the ghosts are there, and you feel them watching._

Deliver us from evil.

_Yes, it is an us now, because those ghosts are innumerable and one, and the weight of them is going to end you._

* * *

You hoped someone was looking. 

They had to be.

You think of the lab, what they might be doing. Are they still looking for you? You wonder if you imagined it sometimes. Imagined that life.

You think you got out once. You have an image of darkness, you crouched beneath cavernous roots as he hunts you, but then again you could have dreamt it.

How much of this is real?

_

* * *

You have strange dreams, now. _

_Flashes, memories._

_Doing work in the labs. Talking with people. Greg. Nick. Old crime scenes. Driving.  
__Boring, mundane things. __Your brain sifting through its back files._

_You miss them. _

_Faces, sounds._

_They drift in and out, blurring into a smear of wanting._

_You're spending time in your head now, and you live in old memories of San Francisco, old times, but they merge and leave you dizzy._

_You're so tired even when you wake, and you're eyes always seem to ooze with wetness._

_Yet almost fretfully, your mind keeps pulling the memories up, trying to take you home_.  
_You wish it would stop._

* * *

Brass has stopped asking questions. 

He sits, and listens as you talk.  
Your voice is flat, and you stop it from shaking by not saying the things that will make it waver.

His face is blank, and the room behind the looking glass is silent.

_

* * *

Grey sky, grey sand, flat desert.  
__Empty space that stretches so far it seems you feel claustrophobic in the abyss. __You're sitting, staring at the grey absence above your head._

_Grissom is there._

_He doesn't seem to find this odd, and you don't question._

_He's turning his hand, watching as a spider crawls over and over as he turn and turns, and you both watch its little legs jerk._

"_I wonder if he knows," he wonders idly, cupping his hands together.  
_"_Knows what?" You watch the spider pause, legs probing uncertainly.  
_"_About people. If he understands what we are."  
_"_He?"_

"_Yes. He." He lifts it eye high. "Aren't you?"_

_The spider is still, and seems to watch him._

"_You're not real."_

_You say this to Grissom, or the spider. You're not sure.  
__He puts his hand to the earth, and the spider leaps away and vanishes._

"_Does it matter if I am or not?"_

_You don't know what to say to that. _

_In the distance, you think you hear thunder.  
__To have him so close but not have him at all makes you ache inside, and you can't look at him._

_You look down, and he reaches and touches your hand with his. _

_You can't create the feeling of his fingers._

"_Help me?"_

_Even in your dream, your voice cracks.  
__You watch him squeeze your hand._

"_I'm trying." _

_You can't remember if he says that or that's what you want him to say.  
__You look up, and all you see are glasses that flicker like stars_

* * *

This story of yours is fragmented. 

You don't remember clearly; Brass would like you to remember days, which day, what time. You lost chunks of it, and you only have these small snatches.

You wonder how your mind did this, and you can only hope it won't find these forgotten files later. Living through it once was enough; you won't go through it again.  
You don't want to be telling this story. You want to talk about how they found you, about Grissom's obsession, how Greg found the key, how Catherine found the ghosts.  
You want to talk about the man whose death saved you.

You want to talk about something with a happy ending.

* * *

**End Part One**


	2. Part II

There is too much rhetoric here.

You never were one for words. You understand science, logic, method. This is not you, this dodging of truth and wandering thoughts.

Well then. The facts.

God only knows how he managed to get you there, but there you were for three weeks. You sunk and life washed over you, till they dug you up when you were half dead.

You were not the first, but you were the last. No one is sure how many, but the count so far is twenty-seven women, from the remains they found. They still had rings on their fingers, some of them, like the one you had that was cut off while you were unconscious.

It was the man, and Greg, who cracked the case, led them to him.  
He got careless.

He was mad, they say, and you can't help but think some of the things he did were too logical for madness.  
But then, if he were sane, that would scare people even more.

* * *

What about the man?  
The man? 

That ghost you dreamt up, the one you knew you must have dreamt.

How else did he find you?

Steps around the house. You thought it was him, until you heard him call out.  
You must have made a noise, because the silence was electric, and he called out again.

He looked through that gap, and saw you.

That look. That's burned into you, always, forever.

You were crying, hysterical, but then that's no surprise after what you've been through. Already you've classified it as past tense, behind.  
You should have known better.

He couldn't get the door open; he reached through the gap from outside, and you cling onto his hand so tight when they found his body later some of your blood was still there, still mixed with his.

That's how they knew you were still alive.

Why did he move away again?  
It was his phone. Yes, it was out of range. He was trying to get a connection. Ambulance, people, salvation.

He made you let go, but even still he got your blood all over his hands.

He walked away, and you suddenly couldn't stand it.  
You made the door rattle on its hinges.

Even still, you heard it.

Gunshot.

_No_.

You were suddenly limp, hanging, breathless and spineless and empty with knowing.

_No, no, no, no…_

You beat it in fist on the door, even as He came, pushed you away.  
How could your soul have tormented you with that hope? This loathing, frustration and terrible disappointment.  
You can't take it.

He comes, and you break his glasses with the palm of your hand, bite his arm. You are mindless with rage and boiling with hate.  
He will pay you back, but you are beyond caring. Your escape was ripped away.

Later you curl in the space beneath the stairs, and you pick out the shards of glass embedded in you palm.

Your victory, a peak in valleys of defeats. This is all you have to cling to, this smallest of wins. This is the step away from the march towards the end.  
Two steps forward, one step back…

You pile the glass shards in a pile, and they shine faintly. You think of maybe holding one pinched between two fingers, puncture his pulsing throat as he is bent above you.

Or you could cut into the wood around the door, slowly grind through and escape.  
Or another, easier escape, that comes from you.

That would be a mercy.

* * *

By now it has been days, weeks, months, years, decades and millennia. Or it might as well have been. You wish you had counted, so you could define your misery. Define it, measure it and quantitate it. 

He asked you, about the name scratched on the wall.

By then you're too sick to answer; fever is eating at your insides. They've given up with you, and sickness invades and wipes your mind clean.  
He touches it with his fingers, and you choke and boil inside your own skin.

_Who is he?_

First words he speaks that are human, that don't come from the monster.

You can't speak, but even if you could you would say nothing.

You don't know who he is, but you know what he was.  
You hope he is your saviour, you hope he is the one who is looking.

You hope he is still there.

_Who is he?_

You think you might be dying.

* * *

Your mask is falling. 

He comes less, now, and you can be left to shudder. What you have become is too far from what you are supposed to be, and his imagination is stretching to breaking point.

He keeps trying to look at you, and you are almost too far gone to turn your head away.  
Almost.

You wish you remembered where you hid the glass.

* * *

Survival is all a matter of what you are willing to give up. 

Dignity, pride.  
Will.

Yes, you lost those.

Now, what will you keep, when there is so little to choose from?  
You cannot fight anymore, because it is costing you too much. This is coming down to a game of economics, and you don't have much left in you.

So you don't fight it. Not anymore.

All you can do now is wait.  
Endure.

Because someone must be coming.

* * *

Your end is coming. 

He sits.  
He watches you breathe.  
Sometimes he talks.

He calls you by her name, the woman whose face you wore.  
You wonder if she was one of your ghosts, the ones who were here before.

The first, perhaps?

Maybe she was the one who drew the cross, or the one who gave up after four strokes.

Strokes. Stokes.  
Nick.

You miss Nick.

You're not sure, sometimes, who you hate more, her or him, or even if it's in you to hate at all.

You wish he'd stop looking at you, though. You're tired of this game.  
He knows you're dying.

Without the torch, you see him properly; if you could have thought straight you would have wondered at his ordinariness.

Unremarkable, monstrous man.

* * *

Brass is silent. 

What is he thinking?

* * *

He's stopped coming. 

How many days?  
God, you'll die if you remember. No one can live like this for so long.

You think it might be raining.

* * *

Voices above. 

The thought never occurs of angels. Instead you think you've gone mad at last, then the thought dies away and you sink back into the void.

What were you dreaming?

Of Greg. Yes. How he gave you a butterfly ring on your birthday. He meant it as a joke, but it still freaked the hell out of you. You don't want to be connected with her, your doppelganger that managed to get that speech from Grissom.

Your head hurts.

Sounds again, but you barely hear. You wish they would leave you alone; you're too tired for this.

Light.  
No matter. The stairs moan again, and you wonder if he's come to finish you off.

An end.

You could cope with that.

_Oh no._

You don't even realise someone is there; you didn't hear them come down the stairs.

You feel them watching.

Then, a touch at your throat.  
It's electric. You jerk, cover your head without thinking.

_Sara, Sara…_

Stop, stop.

Your mind is playing a horrible trick on you, because your madness sounds just like Nick.

Your hands are curled around your head, trying to crush it out of you, but it's still there.  
Painful touch again, pulling away your hand and forcing you to listen to the voice your head has created.

_Sara, it's Nick._

_No._

Your eyes don't listen. They open.

His face is there.

Nick.

Nick.

But no, you know it can't be real, because Nick wouldn't cry like that. He can't.  
His hand is touching the side of your face. You wonder at how warm, how real he feels.

_Nick?_

He's hugging you, so tight you can't breathe past your own sudden choking breaths.

You somehow cling on, your face buried in his shoulder and the smell of the CSI labs and everything you thought you'd forgotten burning your eyes.

And you wait for it to end, because this can't be real.

* * *

It doesn't. 

Nick carries you out, and you are lain down on a rug in the room above. He covers you with his jacket, and it is only then you realise you haven't really kept your clothes in the past nineteen days.

Nineteen days. They told you that after. You think if you had counted yourself you would have given out.

You remember Nick's hand, and in doing so think of the social worker from so long ago.  
Nick is holding our hand as hard as you had hers, and you think maybe he's trying to hold you back.

You think you know why. There is no ambulance yet. They didn't expect you to be alive.  
You can't blame them for that.  
People come and see, you there but they are silent.

What has he done to you, to get stares like that?

You doze, and wake up as the floor starts to shake. They've moved you, into an ambulance, and the hand holding yours has changed.  
Your fingers curl. The hand feels slightly clawed and cool and you think Catherine in the four or so seconds you stay conscious.

It turns you are right, because you are still not free. They stabilize you, insert drips and assess you.

You could have told them you were practically dead, the tubes weren't necessary. You've been invaded enough.

But then Catherine has to do her job.

_Exhibit A: Body of Sara Sidle._

Nails, feet, hair. Everything. Later someone will support you as a shower washes him away, stinging in your cuts. It will be collected in the drains and sifted through, but they will find nothing.

But you are half asleep, too shrivelled to really notice.

You remember how many times Catherine says sorry, though. Her voice cracked each time.

* * *

You find out, after, the last thing he has destroyed. 

Days, weeks later, you wake.

You've drifted in and out for a while now, and faces keep blurring. Warrick, Greg, all of them.  
You can't be looking too good, because there's always that same look on their faces.

But for now, you are awake.

You blink, lift your head and unpeel your eyelids.

Grissom. He's there, and he's watching you. "Hey."

Then, there is silence.

In the quiet, you start to cry, because you see now what he's really done.

Because he's there, now, standing between you and him like a great wall, and this weakness of his that made him has been passed on to you.  
Grissom can't see you through him, and you can't say a word.

The sobs rattle your chest, and you curl and cover your face. You feel an arm under yours, and he lifts you so your rested against him, the awful sounds you make dying against his chest.

If you could distance yourself more, you would maybe laugh at this moment of so much vacant emotion, wonder at it.

But no one can go that far.

* * *

And so, this is the end. You will go no further.

* * *

Grissom is frustrated with you, sometimes. Well, not you exactly; the things he can't understand.  
He doesn't show it but you know him. He is exasperated by the silences.

_What do you want?_

You consider. You want lot of things.

You want to live without shame.  
You want to live.

His chest swells and falls with a sigh, he moves away. Gives you time, and in your more bitter moments you think that must have been something Catherine taught him.

You don't want time.

You want to be ignorant.

* * *

Brass is quiet. 

His fists unclench, and dark purple half moons smile at you from his palms.

It's good someone is finally getting angry.

* * *

This is not the whole story. 

These are the bits you choose to remember, or are forced to. There are other memories, but they will become cemented in the telling, and you want to forget Him and the things he did.

You wish this story was happier. You wish you could have fought your way out.  
You wish it had honour, had bravery. You wish you had been stronger.

You wish there had been no story.

* * *

Brass leaves you quietly, letting you rest and forget. 

You will not forget.

He'll take the tape, and it will be typed and printed and part of the evidence for the trial in a months time.

They did this so you won't have to speak in court, but you have a feeling it won't work out so well. Turns out it doesn't, but even the best lawyer in the world can't explain away twenty-seven skeletons.

You look down at your arms. They have thickened slowly since you were brought back, but are still ugly and thin. He had starved you, but it hurts too much to think about that kind of hunger again.

Brought back. Like from the dead, resurrected.

You know, from after the telling, that Brass wishes you were like before, because he can't stand to see you as you are now. You know when he looks at you he thinks of you, Ellie and all the other people who have been somehow wronged by him, and it makes him so unhappy.

You miss the Greg that wasn't somehow scared of you, a Warrick that wasn't so painfully kind.

You wish Catherine would bitch at you, at least.

You wish Nick would look at you.

People won't look you in the eye, they move around you like a stone in the river. It's only Hodges who treats you no different, and though you can't decide what to think of that.

Ecklie you think so far likes this silent, empty version of the old model, though you might have to revise your idea of him as a bastard.

He said to come back whenever you were ready, and when you asked for two weeks after you were resurrected he said nothing even though it was against company policy, it was too early.

Grissom gave him a lot of shit for that, but you can't stand to be alone with yourself.

You miss what you were.

* * *

From the room next door you hear the door open, listen to the three steps it takes to get to this room, hear as your door opens.

You hold your head as Grissom comes and sits beside you.  
So now four know your story.

Brass will choose to forget the details, and Grissom will keep them locked away.  
The fourth knows, but won't tell, not even as the chair starts to make him twitch.

For that, at least, you are grateful.

Grissom touches your hand, holds it firmly, gently, real.

What would you have done, without him. Them.

There are a lot of things you need to tell him, but you can't get them out.  
He sees, he understands.

That will have to do, for now.

**

* * *

End**


End file.
